


i just want to see the stars with you

by johnshuaa



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, Fluff and Angst, Hospitals, M/M, Miracles, Paper stars, Sad Ending, Stars, Wishes, i keep killing him alkdjf, jisoo i'm so sorry, poor baby boy seokie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 15:48:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15609666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnshuaa/pseuds/johnshuaa
Summary: Seokmin folds paper stars, hoping for a miracle.





	i just want to see the stars with you

**Author's Note:**

> I make paper stars when I'm bored at school and I was like, I should write a fic about it. It turned out sadder than I thought it would be  
> unbeta-ed
> 
> title from the fault in our stars by troye sivan

A jar of stars sits in front of him, the paper fragile and some torn over the years. Much of the shine of the stars have dulled to matte, but it still fills the jar up, almost to the top.

Maybe it’s all just wishful thinking, but at least that means Seokmin has  _ something _ to hold on. It’s a stretch, but right now, he thinks it could be anything, anything at all, and he would still believe in it, because what else could he do?

His boyfriend fiancé and best friend for practically all of his lifetime, lying on a white hospital bed, tubes stabbed into him in every square inch of skin, as if he were a puppet on a string, controlled by the beeping machine in the corner of the room. His face, lined with bruises and cuts when it used to be a pristine pale. If anything, Seokmin is allowed to believe in a miracle, right?

What his friends tell him, is that life is unfair. Of course it is. How could life just choose him, of all people, to throw in front of a drunk driver on a perfect summer afternoon, sky clear and beautiful, at just the right time? How could they choose Jisoo, the sweetest, most caring person to possibly exist, to hurt, kill even? Life couldn’t possibly just let him _die_ like that.

It’s not just seeing Jisoo in so much pain, barely struggling to survive, that’s bad. Everything about this situation, where Seokmin is sitting on the too old couch next to a motionless Jisoo, is something that shouldn’t ever have happened. Jisoo most certainly did not deserve to be stuck like that. Seokmin thinks it should be the other way around, at least, because Jisoo—

He deserved the whole world and everything in it. He deserved to see the night sky, millions of stars shimmering atop the trees, surrounding the crescent moon. Jisoo should be outside, fascinated with the seemingly endless universe above him just like he always has been, since his youth. He’s supposed to tilt his head up and let out a little breath as he spots the brightest star of the night, and Seokmin should be staring at Jisoo, admiring every change his delicate features make.

Jisoo has this large glass jar, topped off by a little cork cap decorated with ribbons tied into bows and an insane amount of glitter. Inside are the paper stars he had made and collected throughout his entire life. The oldest ones are at the bottom, made with plain printing paper he snatched from his high school library every so often. He eventually bought actual star paper from his nearby stationery store, the plain colored ones because they’re the cheapest and came in the largest quantity. Eventually, he could afford the special and unique ones: paper printed with glitter, different patterns, a glossy side.

The jar looks like a rainbow, filled more than halfway with tiny, scrunched up balls of paper. When Seokmin first saw it, he was fascinated by how simple they are, just a rolled-up strip, squeezed to make a tiny 3D star.

“What’s it for?” Seokmin had asked, marveling at the ones on the top, a much larger holographic star. He ran his hand over each spike, squeezed the middle lightly to see if it would deflate.

“I don’t really know,” Jisoo replied. He pulled out a piece of his star paper and tied a little knot at the end, and proceeded to fold. “It looks pretty, I guess.”

“Is it like wishing on a star?” Seokmin said.

“Maybe. Something like that. I’ve just always loved the night sky, and this is my way of making my own,” Jisoo concluded, pinching the corners of his paper to make a cute little star. He popped open his jar and tossed it into the multi-color ocean.

“Teach me?” Seokmin giggled. Jisoo took out his stash of papers from the drawer under his desk, handing Seokmin a sparkly blue one. The two sat across from each other on the couch, talking and folding until the jar slowly filled up.

Now it’s only Seokmin on the crusty couch, glass jar in front of him. Jisoo had bought him one a year ago along with a large stash of sparkly star paper (his favorites). Seokmin hadn’t gotten the time to finish making all of them, in between work and studying for his Masters. Now he does, but he’s not sure if this is a good thing.

He’s pretty sure his thumb and index fingers have callouses from the endless pinching of paper in the last couple of days. Only idle actions like these can distract him, because Seokmin still needs to stare at the tiny paper in his hands and that means he doesn’t have to glance back up at Jisoo and be reminded of everything that happened all over again.

“I believe,” Jisoo started, grabbing ahold of one of Seokmin’s hands, playing with his long, nimble fingers and the simple, silver band on the fourth finger. “That stars can grant us wishes.”

The two tangled their legs together on the couch of their apartment, still barely unpacked. They’ve only put in the bulky furniture, yet to decorate and call the place their own. But moving takes too much work, and none of their friends, coincidentally, were able to stop by to help today. Instead, there was a silent agreement of cuddling and kisses until they had to get back to work tomorrow.

(“We live one day at a time, and never take it for granted,” Jisoo said. “I’d like to make the most out of it.”)

“You mean you wish on shooting stars?” Seokmin replied.

The way Jisoo smiled, soft and small, was so ethereal that Seokmin took a sharp breath, even though he’d seen the smile millions of times.

“No, but I think shooting stars are just twice as lucky. I think that if we wish for something, one day, one of those stars in the universe hears it and grants the wish. Sometimes, our wish goes to a closer star, or a brighter star. They have more power. Those are the wishes that come back to us faster.”

Seokmin was absolutely entranced, day by day, to be able to have Jisoo by his side, always. He hummed low, like a confirmation.

“And then, sometimes, our wish flies out of the atmosphere, far, far away,” Jisoo extended his fingers when he stretched his arms out, sweeping across an invisible horizon. “They fly past the closer stars because those are already too busy granting wishes, and they find one much further from the Earth. By the time the wish comes back, we may be dead. But, it gets passed on to the next, whoever needs it after us.”

“Is this why you make stars?” Seokmin concluded, leaning in closer to Jisoo, letting his eyes flutter shut against the older’s neck.

“Partially. But would you like to hear the sad part?”

“Sure.”

Jisoo lowered his voice to a whisper next to Seokmin’s ear. “There are times when a wish travels far and wide, across the expanse of the universe, to find a star. Sometimes, that star is old, slowly withering away, but still able to take a wish. There are no rules, you see, when it comes to stars.” Jisoo closed his fist, then spread his fingers to mimic an explosion. “The star doesn’t know, but it’s dying. When it dies, becomes a burst of plasma and fades into nothing, like the wish. Then it’s as if that wish never happened.”

With a little whine, Seokmin nuzzled his head into Jisoo’s neck further. “That’s sad.”

Jisoo’s face stayed strong. “It’s what makes us human, Minnie.”

Seokmin wonders where his wish is. He hopes it’s with one of the closer stars, maybe one that he sees on a nightly basis. He wishes, so hard, every single night, hoping something will hear it.

The worst part of it all is when the nurse comes in to check Jisoo’s vitals. Every time, she walks in with a clipboard and an indifferent face, only emotion being pity when she sees Seokmin’s oily hair, heavy under bags, and several-days-old shadow on his chin. Then, she presses a couple buttons on the machine to change its numbers and writes it down with a heavy sigh, as if Jisoo weren’t getting any better. Then, she changes the IV and leaves, to be back in a couple hours.

But Jisoo  _ had _ to be getting better. By probability, Seokmin calculates, Jisoo should survive, either by sheer luck or Seokmin’s endless wishes.

“Have you ever heard about the paper cranes wish?” Jisoo said one day, after coming home from a long day of work. His dress shirt was wrinkly after forgetting to press it over the weekend, but he shrugged it onto the floor in exchange for a baggy shirt.

Seokmin nodded. “You make a thousand paper cranes, and then you make a wish and it’ll come true.”

Jisoo climbed into bed with Seokmin, scooching until he settled on Seokmin’s lap. “I have another theory.”

“Shoot.”

“I think something similar works for paper stars. If you make enough to fill a jar, then you get a wish. The bigger the jar, the bigger the wish can be. If you get a jar… this big,” Jisoo mimed a circle the size of his torso. “You get a miracle!”

Seokmin giggled and threw the covers over the two of them. “C’mon, star boy. Let’s get some sleep.”

The glass jar in front of him is the biggest one he could find in the crafts store, meant to be a fish tank rather than a decorative jar. He dumped all of Jisoo’s old stars in there, plus all of what Seokmin collected in the past year. It’s a bit more than halfway filled, slowly but steadily increasing as Seokmin makes more. There’s less and less paper left next to him, as he goes through each pack quickly. He’ll have to leave and buy some more soon, or his efforts would all be for nothing.

He’s counting. Every time the machine beeps, Seokmin completes one star. Every twenty beeps, there’s a different kind of beep, and Seokmin pushes the little pile next to him into the jar on the ground, and Jisoo would breathe a bit more heavily.

Knot. Press. Fold. Tuck. Puff. Repeat. His fingers hurt, but the almost-there jar is worth so much more. Maybe his wish had gone a bit further than expected. He had to take matters into his own hands.

Again. The next star is golden, one of Jisoo’s favorite. Seokmin doesn’t manage to complete it by the next beep. In the next minute, Seokmin should have finished twenty stars, but only made thirteen within those beeps.

It all becomes a blur. The machine goes haywire, loud, incessant beeps. The lines on the screen and numbers turn red, and a group of doctors and nurses bursts through the door. One in blue scrubs reads off the screen, while another with a white coat pulls out some tubes quickly, then pushes the bed out of the room.

It’s so fast, and Seokmin can barely register it all.

“Shit.”

He stands, and his legs are jelly from sitting without moving for half of the day. Stumbling against the wall, Seokmin eventually manages to leave the room, but Jisoo is nowhere to be found.

_ They’re going to save him. Have some faith. _

It wasn’t like they would let Seokmin near the operation room anyways, so he wobbles back in, legs still very much asleep, only to find a mess of glass and paper littering the floor. Somewhere between the frantic stumbling and Seokmin’s lack of working brain cells, he kicked it, and suddenly, years of hard work down the drain. Jisoo never said what would happen if he broke the container.

There’s a few more in between hours, and they are the worst. Seokmin tries his best to get some well-deserved sleep, and he wishes, as hard as he can, that after this, Jisoo will be as good as new. He breaks the rules too and wishes on every star he sees once he notices it’s nighttime.

“Can we have a night wedding?”

Seokmin cocked his head. “Those exist?”

“Of course it does. I want to have our wedding at that park we visited last year. Where you could see the entire night sky.” Jisoo closed his eyes, as if trying to imagine what the reception would look like.

Seokmin pulled Jisoo in by the waist and pressed a kiss on his forehead. “Anything for you.”

“One more thing. I want our first dance to be out on the grass. We have to be directly under the stars.”

With a laugh, Seokmin kissed Jisoo square on the lips this time. “We literally got engaged a week ago.”

Jisoo pouted a little, just a purse of his lips. “I’m planning ahead.”

“Ok, star boy.”

The doctor in mint scrubs comes back to the room with a solemn face, and Seokmin hopes, wishes on his stars as hard as he could.

_ He’s just adjusting. He’ll be better in a couple weeks. _

_ The surgery went well, and we just have to monitor him when he wakes up. _

_ He might need to stay around for a bit more, but he’ll be just fine. _

“I’m sorry.”

That’s all it takes for Seokmin to crumple to the ground in a heap.

The park is mainly just a grassy expanse hidden within a circle of evergreen trees. They went in the spring, so there were hundreds of flowers dotting the green, bringing everything to life. Seokmin and Jisoo had lain down in one of the patches and pointed at the skies, at the tops of the trees and at the moon and at the stars.  _ The stars. _

Seokmin holds the little box delicately, afraid of dropping it. There’s a slight breeze, whistling and sending the grass flowing. It’s perfect for the occasion.

It’s daytime, which Jisoo probably would not have liked. But the stars had let him down when it shouldn’t have last time. Seokmin’s wish should have reached the closest star, but it flew, far, far away, and attached on one that was ready to die. His wish died with it, and so did Jisoo.

Seokmin wonders, but concludes that it would have taken a miracle for Jisoo to live anyways.

The lid comes off, and gray-black ashes fly. Jisoo ceases to exist, yet he’s still hoping, fluttering. Maybe one day he’ll fly to the stars. Seokmin hopes that he would go find that one star that failed them both, but knowing Jisoo, he never would.

Jisoo would fly and meet the sun, the moon, greet every star he comes across.

“I wish he’s happy up there.”

**Author's Note:**

> stalk me on  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/johnshuaa)  
> [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/johnshuaa)


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